Side Trip

From the Canadian Street
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Back at the hotel, unable to sleep, I ventured into the bar for a beer. It was set up like a Bedouin tent, characteristic black and white hangings delineating the outer walls, the booths hung with red, brightly embroidered blankets. (An example of these can be seen behind Nazeeh in the picture of him seated in the tent where we smoked shisha.) Artfully placed brass coffee pots enlivened the floor space and two large cages held a collection of strange birds that whistled and shrieked at ear-splitting volume.

Striving to ignore the din, I ordered my beer and leafed through the lavishly illustrated Guide to the Egyptian Museum I picked up in Cairo. A young man approached and began feeding sunflower seeds to the birds in the cage just beside me.

“Excuse me,” he said suddenly, “Are you reading an Egyptian tour guide?”

“I nodded. “For the Egyptian Museum actually.”

“That’s wonderful! I am Egyptian,” he declared, and we exchanged a few pleasantries about the glorious Mother of the World.

Before I relate what happened next, I’m going to take a little detour, launch a discourse about the Canadian character, or What it Means to be Canadian, using three short tales.

The first comes from local history and concerns Victoria’s Empress Hotel, a turreted and ivy-covered edifice, standing proudly at the head of our harbour, named for Queen Victoria and long considered one of the final bastions of the British Empire. High Tea is still served amongst the potted palms in its hushed lobby and it reeks of faded elegance and quiet dignity.

One day a man intent on armed robbery entered the hallowed precincts and made his way to the Garden Cafe. He waved his gun about and yelled, “This is a stick up!” No one paid him the least attention, just continued eating their meals.

He approached the cashier. “Give me all the money in the till!” he ordered, pointing the gun at her.

She didn’t bat an eye. Giving him a look of stern reproval, she said, “Young man, this sort of thing just isn’t done at the Empress.”

The man looked wildly about, discharged his firearm into the ceiling and fled. The diners continued eating placidly and a neatly garbed lackey appeared with a broom and dustpan to sweep up the bits of ceiling plaster that had drifted down to sully the pristine floor.

End of episode.

The second story occurred in Paris. I was there with 29 teenagers, the rash and harried leader of a Spring Break ”field trip.” Late one nascent spring day, I was crammed into the metro cheek by jowl with ten of my students and about half the city’s work force. We stood patiently, clinging to metal poles as the train clattered through station after station.

Suddenly a woman shrieked, “Voleur! Voleur!” and lunged towards a man standing innocuously beside me. A look of alarm crossed his face and he darted out the doors just as they whooshed shut. I managed to jab him with my elbow as he passed.

“That man was trying to pick your pocket,” the woman told me indignantly.

I had my coat tied around my waist as it was hot underground. I checked the pockets which had contained only some loose change and my teaching credentials. Nothing was missing.

Out on the street, I asked the students if they’d noticed anything.

“Oh yes,” said one particularly sweet girl, “That man kept putting his hand in your pocket. Every time he did, I just took it out again. I was starting to get a bit scared.”

I gazed at her in astonishment. “Why didn’t you say something?”

She gazed back at me in equal astonishment. “I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”

The third story takes place in the Ontario hinterlands and involved my other brother, the one who isn’t a musician. We’ll call him Toy. My parents do, so why not?

Many years ago, when his twins were tiny, Toy and his wife lived in a cottage that had a summer kitchen. These rooms are found off the main kitchen and aren’t well enough insulated for year-round use. They tend to become storage areas and usually have a locking door that separates them from the house proper.

One morning my sister-in-law, Syl, came toodling out to start breakfast. She whisked up the blind in the window of the door leading to the summer kitchen and what to her horror-struck eyes did appear but a villainous looking male body lying on the floor amongst a heap of croquet mallets.

“Toy!” she called. “Come out here right away.”

Toy dutifully presented himself and peered through the window at the body, which was now starting to stir ominously.

“You have to do something,” said Syl, “Before the babies wake up.”

Now, if Toy had been American, he would have fetched the family gun, taken aim and blown the intruder’s brains out. Being Canadian, he opened the door cautiously, tip-toed across the summer kitchen, bent down and gently tapped the man’s shoulder. “Excuse me,” he asked. “Can I help you?”

The man opened bleary eyes. “Huh?” he intoned, obviously sunk far into his cups.
Toy solicitously helped him to his feet and out to the street where he stumbled to the neighbour’s lawn and collapsed once more. I’m told he lay there till noon, alternately sleeping and belting out slurred renditions of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, fortified by cups of coffee trotted out to him by anxious local residents.

These anecdotes should serve to illustrate why, when Bird Feeder Guy at the Bedouin Bar in Aqaba turned to me and said, “May I join you?” my automatic response was, “Of course.” I didn’t want him at my table and had no desire for further conversation with him but – well, the poor guy must have been exhausted after attending to all those birds and was probably too weak to make his way to an adjoining table. Either that or he wanted to practise his English.

To my relief, however, he sat down for only few brief moments then got up and left the hotel. The happy feeling of release warmed the cockles of my heart and I carried on with my awe-struck perusal of King Tut’s treasures.

Ten minutes later, BFG returned.

“I invite you,” he said, “to Happy Hour – special drinks – in special hotel across the street.”

“No, thank you,” I said coldly and with a deep inward sigh.

“Why not?” he demanded, very assertive now.

“Because I don’t want to.”

“But why? We have good time. Very nice place.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to go. And I won’t.”

“Why not? I am your Egyptian friend. I take good care of you.”

This distressing exchange continued for several minutes, BFG now verging on the belligerent. Unfortunately, the shrieks of the birds muffled our words so I couldn’t look to the bar staff for rescue. Finally I summoned what Piglet used to call my Teacher Look.

“You will go away,” I said sternly and with authority. “You will go NOW and not bother me any more. If you do not, I will start to scream. Do you understand?”

A few shreds of argument threatened to dribble from his lips.

“NOW,” I repeated.

He went.

Even in Jordan, I thought, even in Jordan.

Hubbly Bubbly

Palestinian shepherds; Nazeeh and the sea; Awaiting the performance; Hubbly bubbly with the lights of Eilat in the background.
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From Wadi Rum we drove through a lunar landscape to Aqaba at the northernmost point of the Red Sea. We passed some men tending sheep on a rocky hillside and I insisted on stopping to take pictures.

“Palestinian shepherds,” Nazeeh said as we got underway again.

“Palestinians?” Startled, I found myself up against the brick wall of my own ignorance. “There are Palestinians in Jordan?” I scrolled through my inner geography for the country of Palestine I was sure existed somewhere in the region.

“Many, many Palestinians here,” Nazeeh announced. “Especially since three hundred thousand get kicked out of Kuwait.”

“Kuwait? Kicked out?”

“Yes. Mr. Yasser Arafat support Mr. Saddam Hussein in Gulf War, say he a good man and Americans bad, so when Kuwaitis get their country back, they kick out all the Palestinians.”

“But why did they come to Jordan?”

“Nowhere else for them to go.” Nazeeh shrugged. “They are – what is the word – workers who go to another country but not citizens there.”

“Migrant workers?”

“Yes. Migrant.” Nazeeh rolled his tongue around the syllables. “I remember this new, good word.” He paused, committing it to memory. “So they come back and their camps get very full.”

“Camps?”

“Yes, Palestinians live in camps. Many millions.”

Numbers don’t often translate well, so I didn’t immediately take this figure at face value.

“How long will they stay there?”

Nazeeh looked at me pityingly. Poor ignorant western woman his gaze said. “Only God knows. They always live in camps. Long ago Israelis kick them out of their villages and they run here. Live in camps. United Nations send food for them.”

Some shreds of history returned to my shocked consciousness. “Are you telling me that Palestinians have been living in refugee camps here since 1948?”

“Oh yes. Is big problem because Jordan very poor country. I tell you before, we don’t have oil. Our King give citizenship for two or three hundred thousand but we can’t help the rest. Jordan very small country, too, with lots of desert.”

Too stunned for further comment, I readjusted my mental bearings as we wended our way into the city of Aqaba.

Since the lobby of my hotel was full of Arabian splendours, my dingy, poorly-lit room was an unpleasant contrast. Bashir certainly fell down on the job here, I thought. If I’d become his doxy according to plan, I’d most definitely have pelted him with strong words for his lapse in attention. I pulled open the curtains to let in some badly needed light and watched the sun set over the Red Sea, a shimmering orange ball sinking swiftly into the shiny grey depths.

“Why is the Red Sea called Red?” I asked Nazeeh when I met him in the lobby at 5:30.

“Because of coral,” he said. “The sea is full of red coral reefs. We go now to the beach but you will not see coral tonight. Too dark. And in the morning we go to Dead Sea. So maybe you never see the famous coral.”

Horrified to learn it was illegal in Sharjah – Sheikh bin Sultan al-Qasimi thought it encouraged gambling – Nazeeh insisted he was going to treat me to some “hubbly bubbly” or smoking shisha as it’s more formally called. Not narcotic, as fans of Alice in Wonderland might suppose, it’s just fruit-laced tobacco filtered through water and a kind of cotton batten. I chose apple, hoping it might be the least cloying of the various fruits on offer.

Setting up the pipe was a genuine performance with much to-ing and fro-ing and fanning of coals, which have to glow just so to coax the best flavour from the tobacco.

Nazeeh watched proudly as I took my first mouthful. I found it overly thick and sweet and it induced vague nausea but I puffed valiantly on as the sea lapped over stones, its little tongues slipping in and out almost at our feet, and children splashed in the shallows. Others tried to sell me cheap plastic sandals and tin trinkets and irritating Arab pop music blared from speakers mounted above a kebab stand.

Like a blessing from heaven, the mournful rising cadence of the call to prayer challenged the blare and a teenage boy hurried to turn it off. In Jordan, it’s illegal for music or other canned public noise to play while the muezzin’s calling the faithful.

Allahu Akbar!
Allahu Akbar!
Ash-haduan la illaha il-Allah!

God is most great!
God is most great!
I testify that there is no god but God.

When done properly, by a well-trained, truly devout muezzin, the call has a lovely liquid sound, trilling and tripping like a spring brook gurgling over smooth stone, as it did that night, blending with the soft splash of the sea and producing a feeling of profound peace.

“Those are the lights of Eilat,” said Nazeeh, pointing across the rippled sheet of dark water.

“Eilat?”

“Yes. In Israel.”

“Israel?” It was hard for me to believe another country could be so close, especially one with such a big history. I experienced one of those little flashes, or shifts in understanding. Canada is a huge country, the second largest in the world. For me, a journey of several hundred miles, one that can be done by car in a single day – and driving 800 miles in one day wouldn’t be pushing the limits for a Canadian, especially a western Canadian – is short. China is also huge, only marginally smaller than Canada, and I easily assimilated its endless bus and train journeys. Much of Canada is a frozen waste. Distance means little. Here, in this most ancient and holy of lands, distance a Canadian would consider negligible – a matter of metres – means everything: the difference between joy and sorrow, freedom and incarceration, hope and despair, life and death.

Nazeeh chuckled. We were beginning to know each other well. “Yes,” he said. “Small countries here. Not like Canada or China. Tomorrow night we see the lights of Jerusalem. I, Nazeeh, will show you.”

Rendered once again speechless, apple essence fizzing in my veins, I stared at the sea until dessert arrived, also courtesy of Nazeeh, a block of mozzarella-like cheese drenched in honey and topped with orange angel-hair coconut and a sprinkling of chopped pistachios – perfect antidote to the sickly sweet hubbly bubbly.

On our way back to the car, I saw a small, ancient and very battered flatbed truck parked at the side of the road. In it, a woman was cooking dinner on a circular pan hooked up to a propane tank. Puffs of steam rose into the night air and the woman, thin and stooped, wearily brushed strands of hair off her forehead. A young girl, swathed in a heap of tattered patchwork blankets, sat on a threadbare couch that ran the length of one whole side of the flatbed and chattered animatedly to the woman, no doubt her mother. The girl’s eyes danced with joy despite the dire poverty of her surroundings.

I remembered Nazeeh’s comment, “Jordan is a poor country.”

Maybe my hotel room wasn’t so dingy after all.

Thank You

Just a brief - but big - thank you to those who sent recovery wishes while I wasn't feeling well. I don't think I'm out of the woods but there's a clearing ahead.

I'll be continuing the Jordan story tomorrow.

The Queen's Garden

Islands in the mist. That’s the rather banal thought that persisted in my brain as I rode the ferry to Vancouver last weekend. The water over which we sailed was a rippling grey sheet, the fog a grey shroud that turned the Gulf Islands into featureless grey-green humps. The sky and the distance had ceased to exist.

The Queen of Too Much awaited me when I emerged from the five-mile walkway ferry riders must traverse to get from boat to parking lot. We started talking as if our conversation had only ended a few minutes earlier. That’s one of the many nice things about knowing a person since they were 15.

Arriving at the Queen’s Palace is always exciting. Much like at Buckingham Palace, there are little dogs everywhere, running and leaping and yipping with joy. The furnishings and bibelots greet me like old friends: the Victoria sofa, the handmade cherub mirror, the Japanese lady in a glass box, the elegant tea cups nestled in their hutch, the Little Mermaid – the real one – statue and the welcome runner dispensing advice in neat Danish needlepoint. As well as the wholesome goodies within, the surface of the Queen’s fridge provides an endless visual feast, including photos of the Queen in a cancan costume.

Since the Queen had graciously given the kitchen staff an afternoon off, we proceeded to a Japanese restaurant for lunch – very late, just getting in before it closed – but I’m not a breakfast eater and the food on the ferry is an inedible disgrace, a slap in the face to the province our premier likes to call the “best place on earth.” He likes calling it that so much, in fact, that he ordered it emblazoned on our license plates, a source of grim humour to us peons who ride the ferries in our hungry thousands, dodge the bullets flying in Vancouver’s vicious gang war and sidestep the needles dropped everywhere by our homeless junkies. I will admit, though, that the carnage is set against a backdrop of incomparable beauty.

Then came preparations for the main purpose of my visit. The Queen’s youngest daughter, Lily, was appearing in her high school musical that night. Back at the Palace, nervous and distracted, she searched the cupboards for suitable sustenance, eventually found in the form of a bagel and cream cheese. Coupled with the take-out chicken the Queen brought home from the restaurant, there was an acceptable amount of food for her to be unable to eat.

We dropped her at the home of a fellow thespian. We picked up two dozen fuchsia roses. We retrieved Lily and her friend and took them to the stage door. We prepared dinner for the husband and the older daughter, Rose. We solved all of that day’s planetary problems. We donned evening gowns. I use “we” in the royal sense. The Queen did all these things while I followed obediently and understood, again, why her realm is called Too Much.

As always, time wore on and the big moment was upon us. We ensconced ourselves in the theatre – having successfully stampeded our way to good seats – while fellow attendees chattered in excitement and anticipation. A pleasant, muted cacophony rose from the orchestra pit. The lights dimmed. A hush descended, that almost holy hush that pervades the atmosphere just before the curtain rises on a live performance. It’s a moment of suspension between two worlds and the anticipation becomes momentarily unbearable as we wait for the journey to begin.

And the audience was indeed transported. I had expected Bye Bye Birdie to be good. I’ve worked with teenagers and know what they can do when inspired and trained. But this show was superb, absolutely professional, riveting. The three hours we spent in Conrad Birdie’s universe passed outside regular time so it had no regular meaning and wasn’t noticed as it passed.

Lily, too, became another person. Radiant. Assured. Full of her character. As if she’d come home at last to the place she really belongs and where she is most herself. Her seamless performance enhanced the others’, as theirs did hers. She has an amazing stage presence and a great talent.

Afterwards, the foyer was thronged with parents and flowers and – teenagers; as if the proverbial midnight pumpkin moment had arrived and turned them back into their everyday selves. Their youth and adolescent mien were shocking coming so soon after they’d populated the sophisticated world behind the footlights.

Lily stood with her fuchsia roses, tearful, giddy with overexcitement and post-performance high and the bittersweet feel of the show’s final evening. Surrounded by her proud family, her youth, energy and brilliance bubbled up, casting a sparkling net of emotions that joined those cast by the other young actors and made the whole foyer shimmer.

Back at the Palace, sleep was impossible. We gravitated to the kitchen where food and wine were flung about, the rudiments of a feast.

I sat with a goblet of red while Rose picked at some California rolls. Chronically ill since early childhood, Rose has a soul much older than her years and she glows with a kind of concentrated luminosity, fragile as the mother of pearl sheen on abalone shell, intense and wild as Van Gogh’s stars.

I asked about Twilight, a book I tried to read because of all the fuss, got most of the way through it and didn’t bother reading the last dozen or so pages as I didn’t really care what happened. I was curious to hear an intelligent opinion about why it’s so popular.

“It’s the love story,” said Rose. “The impossible love story that everyone wants to have but never quite does. Or hasn’t yet. And with Bella and Edward it’s more impossible than usual but somehow seems more real at the same time. And you’re right. The book isn’t very well-written but it’s a big book. Some people who’ve never really read a book outside of school before read Twilight and not only love the story but have a feeling of accomplishment at reading such a big book.”

I said I thought the impossible love story thing had already been done – and done better - in Buffy but the show ended many years ago and perhaps seems old to today’s teenagers.

And so we talked about vampires and Twilight and love and literature until the castle clock harrumphed and hooed, its insistent arms swinging towards 1:00 a.m. I had to reluctantly admit the evening’s revels were ended, the last sparkles winking wearily out as the net faded and dissipated.

My foot touched the cold floor and a little shiver ran over me. I looked down. Only one slipper on one foot. What a way to come back to earth! Had I brought only one? My eyes scanned the floor. I searched my bag. Nothing there and still only one slipper on my foot. Had encroaching age and the blasted kidney infection destroyed a quarter of my brain cells as I still struggled on, unaware? A conviction of helpless stupidity began slipping its mantle over me but, just before I could be covered in despair, I spied something green and familiar peeking out from the Sleeping Basket of the Palace Dogs. Yes!

And so to bed.

Not Gone

This one's just to let readers know that I haven't vanished. I've been ill. Regular posts will start again very soon.